


By the Belief in Breaking Justice

by classics_above_classics



Series: Alice Dorothy and Stories Set Elsewhere [3]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Changelings, Cliffhangers, Deals, Dubious Ethics, Gen, Revenge Plots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 10:30:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18892816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classics_above_classics/pseuds/classics_above_classics
Summary: Lento tries to seek vengeance. Vengeance is found.(Sometimes, it is best to let others have the last laugh.)





	By the Belief in Breaking Justice

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, something from Lento's point of view! And an introduction of two new characters! I'm going to have a lot of fun writing the next parts.
> 
> Again, comments, theories, speculations, and anything of the sort are very much welcome!

Come the next daybreak, Lento is furious.

Oh, she was furious before, when Alice escaped to the unquestionable safety of the library café and refused to leave until the first Fiddler _(the first Fiddler! And how did her silly little roommate manage to get that thing’s favour?!)_ came to escort her back himself, keeping a wary eye on anyone who dared look in their direction. She was furious before, when she couldn’t sense the weight of any debts owed to her and couldn’t hear the sweet, sweet music of favours to be called in. She was furious before, when her lifeblood was torn from her.

But come the next daybreak, Lento is still furious, and this is a fury sharpened by thought. She makes plans.

_(Rage. Muses, sing the song of Achilles’ rage! And of the tragedy he leaves in its wake.)_

There’s so, so much she had planned. All up in smoke. A dream of favours called in, all thousands and hundred thousands of them, until every student in Elsewhere had taken up a role and created a Court to rival the Courts all on their own- all gone. There’s so, so much that could have been, so much magic that could have been done.

Lento’s always dreamed of magic, of being royalty, of changing the world. She could have had all three of those things at once. Could have.

So she rages, plans with all the fury of a dream burned to ashes, and god help the girl she will burn on the pyre of that dream.

⋈

There is a group of siblings known as the Fiddlers here. They like to make deals.

It is the third Fiddler that Lento seeks out, a too-soft little thing in medical who goes by the name Watson. He has _office hours_ , self-assured little shit. _Office hours_. As if his deal-making is a professional thing. He’s practically a glorified hitman.

Lento enters his office at eight oh-two in the morning. It’s as early as she’s willing to risk. Watson’s office hours start at seven-thirty, really, but that silly little couplet that Alice kept reciting is drilled into her head now, and she can’t help but believe it. It’s a safe hour. So she will be safe with him.

Eight oh-two. The minute hand ticks.

“Good morning,” Watson says pleasantly, looking up from his seat at a student’s desk. He does not welcome her as a guest. She does not expect him to. An abandoned classroom isn’t exactly the most business-like setting, but it works. “Have a seat, would you? It won’t cost you.”

Lento plops down into the desk opposite him maybe a little too pointedly. It’s enough to make his welcoming smile falter. “It’s nice to meet you. Watson, isn’t it?”

“The one and lonely,” the med student quips, not looking very worried about it at all. He smiles politely and waves hello, the glitter of some red jewel bright on the ring he proudly wears. “Nice to meet you too. Though I’m not quite sure what to call you…?”

“Lento is fine.” She doesn’t bother with the preamble. She doesn’t bother trying to get his name, to collect a favour, to collect a debt. Watson is, presumably, a smart boy. He has to be, to have survived two years here as the Fiddler of retribution. Though, if the rumours are true, he isn’t a particularly fey one. That’s the other Fiddlers’ role. “There’s a girl I want revenge against.”

“It’s always revenge,” Watson sighs, looking plainly exasperated. “Is there a reason why? No, no- of course there is. I’ll rephrase that. Is there a _good_ reason why?”

“Of course there is.”

“May I know what it is?”

Lento weighs her choices, weighs her options. She could lie. She could always lie. But it wouldn’t be comfortable, it would burn and hurt and he could see it _(and the lies stick in her throat, the lies never want to leave, there is enough calculation and enough fae in her that the lies do not want to leave)_. She could tell him the truth. But what kind of revenge would that give her? There is something childishly noble in Watson, something that makes him offer retribution rather than plain violence and something that makes him still hope that someone will ever come to his office in search of something other than vengeance. He would not offer her vengeance if he believed there was nothing to avenge.

A half-truth, then. Simple, basic, undeniably useful.

“The girl who calls herself Alice Dorothy betrayed me.” Truth. “I trusted her- I thought we had a connection! A _bond_!” They did. Several, in fact. “But she- she broke that trust. She _attacked_ me, took away my protections-”

“Severed that bond?”

“Yes!”

It’s a little too hasty, a little too much. But just barely.

Watson sighs, clasping his hands together tightly. “I see. So… you’re saying it’s some kind of love-betrayal thing, then?”

… Yes. Yes, alright. She can work with that.

“I trusted her,” Lento repeats, making sure to sound pitiably heartbroken. She did, really. Just a little. She trusted that silly, sweet little first year not to be dangerous enough to act against her.

It was nice, really, having someone who trusted her. Having someone she could trust to trust her. There didn’t have to be any games, sometimes. She didn’t have to watch her wording anymore, didn’t have to analyse every hidden meaning. Near-everything that Alice offered was freely given. Near-everything she did was just because she felt it was the friendly thing to do. There wasn’t much about her that was fey.

Lento lived and breathed the fey. Sometimes, it was nice to have a breath of clear humanity.

_(It was telling, really, that even in anger her roommate didn’t look for retribution or magic. Because the Fiddler who had escorted her out was the Fiddler of protection, and a contract in invisible ink just reeked the advice of the Fiddler of knowledge.)_

_(If anything, at least she can still trust that Alice wanted protection and not pain.)_

_(But then what did Lento want?)_

“I want retribution.”

The words hang silent in the stale air.

“Now, see, there’s… a bit of a problem with that.” Watson grimaces, the pressure on his hands tightening. “See, I work with retribution. Deserved violence. An eye for an eye. And… well, I’m not entirely sure how making metaphors works, but, well… As far as I can tell, Alice Dorothy only took her own eye back.”

… What?

“My brother told me about her,” Watson continues, slipping his hands into his pockets. “He told me about the debts she owed, about the person who she owed them all to. Lento. Banjo Player. Bond Girl. Lyric-Weaver. Girl-Who-Plays-A-Thousand-Things. I don’t appreciate those who treat others like things to be used.”

“I use those bonds to protect me,” Lento says instinctively. The words feel like knives to her throat.

“You do not.” The Fiddler looks up, face entirely stoic, but there’s a rage in his eyes that Lento can almost feel. The jewel on his ring flashes dangerously: once, twice, thrice, four times. “I wish I could work magic against you. I truly wish I could.”

“You can’t.”

“No. I can’t. So says my deal.” The glint of controlled fury in his polite smile says it’s the only reason she’s still unharmed. “But I have a way with retribution. That, I’m sure you know.”

Fuck. _Fuck_. What will he do?

“Leave now, while I still allow you to.”

Lento doesn’t hesitate. She makes a run for it.

⋈  
She listens carefully to everything the rest of the day.

Lento knows the kind of retribution that Watson likes to wreak. Poetic justice. An eye for an eye. And her eye is wordplay. So she tries to stay silent the rest of the day, answers every question even from the teachers like she’s speaking to the Winter Queen. She almost dreads returning to the dorm that night. Because Alice will be there, Allie with her Seeing glasses and the Fiddler watching out for her, and she is not stupid. It would be most poetic, after all, if retribution was delivered before the person she most wronged.

_(Wronged. The person that she had most wronged. That’s a thought, that’s an interesting, human thought. Lento doesn’t think she likes the human. Then again, retribution is a very fey thing to exact. Violence for violence. It’s the fey that means to hurt her now.)_

Lento puts off going back to her dorm that night. This is where things go wrong.

She heads for the library café. She doesn’t reach it.

“Good evening,” a student greets her as she passes them in the hall. Before she can reply, they grab her by the arm.

“I don’t mean to attack you,” the student says, “so there’s no need to scream.”

There is panic running through Lento’s veins, panic, panic, _panic_. She can see where the faint edges of the student’s fingers blur into her, where their glamour is just a little too thin. She can see the inhumanly bright flecks of yellow-gold in their eyes, can see the lack of shadow in them. At the very least, this student is fae-touched. At the very most…

Lento looks up, takes in the taller student’s features, and sees the face of the fourth Fiddler staring back at her.

The changeling.

⋈

Students still aren’t sure why there are four Fiddlers. They still don’t know why the third’s even there, with a changeling in Elsewhere wearing his face. But they do know this.

The fourth one is registered as a changeling by the school, takes the precautions that a changeling would. Pewter utensils in cooking class rather than iron. A note in their file that says not to give them honey. A door with the iron doorknob replaced by a wooden one.

The fourth one is treated as a sibling, as a friend, calls the first three their brothers and proudly shows childhood pictures of all four at once. They look as though they could be Watson’s twin, if a bit more androgynous and more heavy-set, with the same shade of dark skin and the same mess of curls in their hair and the same mole high up on their neck. They do not lie about their family- they wear its markings proudly around their ankle, really, a braided bracelet made of thick red string that matches the red of the deal-makers. They laugh about childhood dreams and childhood experiences. They make Deals.

The fourth one is standing unblinkingly at Lento’s side, their short nails digging insistently into the skin of her forearm. It’s just enough not to draw blood. They smile pleasantly, the edge of it just a little too sharp. Something all too human in Lento’s blood recoils away from it. She wishes she could draw back.

“Watson’s got a vendetta against you,” the changeling Calcifer laughs, their tone as light as one discussing the weather. “Something about you indebting multiple students? Oh, and Johnny’s been talking too, something about one having a thousand six hundred and five debts on her body. You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”

A thousand six hundred and five. Jesus. Did Alice stay up all night and count them? How could she? Debts were immaterial. Was there something in Cat Eyes’ new glasses that let her?

“Oh, and Cowboy’s been busy too. Haven’t seen him in his office all day.” The gold flecks in their eyes spin, shifting places and dancing like candlelight, like sunbeams. “He’s been tailing this little lost thing, you know? Making sure she gets to classes safe and stays out of your way. I wonder why.”

“Do you want something from me?” Lento asks, and god damn that note of hysteria in her voice as she does. _Say it_ , she thinks, _just say it. Spare me the games._

Calcifer’s grin stretches, spreading across their face unnaturally. No human could wear that gesture. Lento wishes desperately that this was a human.

“I want to make a Deal.”


End file.
